The Medication Safety Programme aims to greatly reduce the number of New Zealanders harmed each year by medication errors in our hospitals, general practices, aged care facilities and across the entire health and disability sector.

Healthcare associated infection is one of the most frequent adverse events in health care worldwide. Up to 10 percent of patients admitted to modern hospitals in the developed world acquire one or more infections.

As part of the April Falls programme, the Patient Safety and Quality team at Whanganui DHB have been busy distributing campaign material and information to raise awareness on reducing harm from falls.

Associate Director of Nursing Maree Sheard and her team hope to help patients, families and staff understand how falls risk assessments, care plans, education material and signalling tools relate to reducing potential harm through individualised programmes.

“We’re running an interdepartmental competition; the department with the highest proportion of staff to complete Topic One’s professional development activity, wins. People can use these colourful postal boxes for hard copies of questionnaires, or questionnaires can be completed online and sent to a special April Falls email address.”

The team has also promoted the Health Quality & Safety Commission’s April Falls Quiz around the hospital by distributing quiz posters.